New Delhi - India is upset at British Foreign Secretary David Miliband's comments on the Kashmir dispute and has said it does not need "unsolicited advice" on its internal issues, media reports said Friday.

Miliband, who concluded his three-day India visit and was due to meet Pakistani leaders Friday, mentioned in a newspaper article that the Kashmir dispute between the neighbours must be resolved to deny extremists in the region "one of their main calls to arms."

Miliband noted that the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, which has its roots in Pakistan and carried out the Mumbai attacks that left 173 dead, had Kashmir as its cause.

"Mr Miliband is entitled to his views, which are clearly his own and are evolving," India's External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said in a statement Thursday evening.

"India is a free country and even if we do not share his views he is free to express them. However, we do not need unsolicited advice on internal matters of India like Jammu and Kashmir," Prakash said in his statement, according to the NDTV network.

During his visit to South Asia this week, Miliband said he was arguing that the best antidote to the terrorist threat in the long term is cooperation.

"Although I understand the current difficulties, resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms, and allow Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders," he wrote in the British daily The Guardian on Thursday.

New Delhi is also unhappy with Miliband's support to Pakistan's position that those wanted by India for terrorist acts need not be handed over but tried in Pakistan.

Miliband also contradicted the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement that official agencies from Pakistan were behind the Mumbai attacks.

The Himalayan region of Kashmir is divided into two parts, one administered by India the other by Pakistan. The two countries have fought two wars over the region and claim it in its entirety.

India has repeatedly accused Pakistan of aiding militant outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba that are headquartered in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and carry out daring attacks in Indian Kashmir and other parts of the country. (dpa)